Shortening the biologics clinical timeline with a novel method for generating stable, high-producing cell pools and clones.

Reducing drug development timelines is an industry-wide goal to bring medicines to patients in need more quickly. This was exemplified in the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic where reducing development timelines had a direct impact on the number of lives lost to the disease. The use of drug substances produced using cell pools, as opposed to clones, has the potential to shorten development timelines.

MicroRNA profiling in the mouse hypothalamus reveals oxytocin-regulating microRNA.

Oxytocin (Oxt), produced in the hypothalamic paraventricular and supraoptic nuclei for transport to and release from the posterior pituitary, was originally discovered through its role in lactation and parturition. Oxt also plays important roles in the central nervous system by influencing various behaviors. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), endogenous regulators of many genes, are a class of small non-coding RNAs that mediate post-transcriptional gene silencing.

Investigating the in vivo expression patterns of miR-7 microRNA family members in the adult mouse brain.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous non-coding RNAs that play critical roles in regulating transcription in eukaryotes. miRNAs are involved in a wide-range of biological processes. Because miRNA research is relatively new, it is not surprising that tools and techniques to study their biology are still being developed.

Wnt signaling stimulates transcriptional outcome of the Hedgehog pathway by stabilizing GLI1 mRNA.

Wnt and Hedgehog signaling pathways play central roles in embryogenesis, stem cell maintenance, and tumorigenesis. However, the mechanisms by which these two pathways interact are not well understood. Here, we identified a novel mechanism by which Wnt signaling pathway stimulates the transcriptional output of Hedgehog signaling.

Zebrafish zic2a patterns the forebrain through modulation of Hedgehog-activated gene expression.

Holoprosencephaly (HPE) is the most common congenital malformation of the forebrain in human. Several genes with essential roles during forebrain development have been identified because they cause HPE when mutated. Among these are genes that encode the secreted growth factor Sonic hedgehog (Shh) and the transcription factors Six3 and Zic2.

A novel role for zebrafish zic2a during forebrain development.

Patterns of transcription factor expression establish a blueprint for the vertebrate forebrain early in embryogenesis. In the future diencephalon, several genes with patterned expression have been identified, yet their specific functions and interactions between them are not well understood. We have uncovered a crucial role for one such gene, zic2a, during formation of the anterior diencephalon in zebrafish.